"Niggers of India"

Whether the Indo-Europeanist envisage a violent invasion or a more
diluted politically correct peaceful migration, race has always been a
factor. Judge Jones' discovery of the Indo-European family shocked
many in Europe. "...there was a cool reception in some circles to Max
Muller's disclosure to a rather ungrateful world that the British and
the rickshaw pullers of Calcutta were of the same racial family (Legge
1902 in Bryant 2005). Muller summarized the reactions as follows:

"They would not have it, they would not believe that there could be
any community of origin between the people of Athen and Rome, and the
so-called Niggers of India (Max Muller 1883, in Bryant 2005)."

"If accepted at face value, the Sanskrit material, as scholars such as
William Jones well knew, threatened to subvert the absolute authority
of Mosaic history, a prospect he and many of his contemporaries found
unacceptable, since they felt obliged to believe in the sanctity of
the venerable books of Genesis (1778: 225 in Bryant 2005)."

Bryant, Edwin (2005), "Concluding Remarks," in The Indo-Aryan
Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History, Edwin F.
Bryant and Laurie L. Patton Eds., New York, NY: Routledge

M. Kelkar